The concept of Digital Earth (DE) was formalized by Al Gore in 1998. At that time the technologies needed for its implementation were in an embryonic stage and the concept was quite visionary. Since then digital technologies have progressed significantly and their speed and pervasiveness have generated and are still causing the digital transformation of our society. This creates new opportunities and challenges for the realization of DE. ‘What is DE today?’, ‘What could DE be in the future?’, and ‘What is needed to make DE a reality?’. To answer these questions it is necessary to examine DE considering all the technological, scientific, social, and economic aspects, but also bearing in mind the principles that inspired its formulation. By understanding the lessons learned from the past, it becomes possible to identify the remaining scientific and technological challenges, and the actions needed to achieve the ultimate goal of a ‘Digital Earth for all’. This article reviews the evolution of the DE vision and its multiple definitions, illustrates what has been achieved so far, explains the impact of digital transformation, illustrates the new vision, and concludes with possible future scenarios and recommended actions to facilitate full DE implementation.

A brief overview of the history of Digital Earth in Russia, its current status and prospects for further development are proposed and discussed in this chapter. The anticipation of the concept of Digital Earth in Russian culture is demonstrated and explained. Conclusions about the specificity of the development of the concept of Digital Earth in Russia due to its geographical, historical and cultural characteristics are drawn, and development factors are revealed. The vital need for the concept in ensuring the effective governance and sustainable development of the country is emphasized. Theoretical and applied results achieved by the Russian Digital Earth community are presented. Special attention is paid to the outreach of the Digital Earth vision to state governance, business, society and education. The key importance of international cooperation for the successful implementation of Digital Earth in Russia is explained.

Digital Earth is widely recognized as a new geospatial approach. However, there is no consensus about what exactly caused a new quality of the Digital Earth – the cutting-edge technologies, social practices or new scientific principle. In addition, relationship between Digital Earth and Cartography remains unclear. We propose to use the situational awareness as a platform for comparative analysis of different geospatial products and recovery of the internal logic of the evolution of the cartographic method. We demonstrate that Digital Earth is characterized by the use of another mathematical apparatus, rather than the classic cartography (similarity instead of the projection), and we offer our vision of the evolution of cartography, which led to the developing of Digital Earth

The article addresses to a fundamental issue facing the concept of the Digital Earth in 2020 – what is the definition of the Digital Earth? 22 years after the announcement of the concept and 15 years after its first mass and successful implementation in the service Google Earth in 2005 this question remains unanswered. In the article the current status of the development of the Digital Earth concept by 2020 is considered, a methodology for the definition of the Digital Earth, based on the classification of the diversity of existing geospatial approaches and the identification of key factors that provide its unique functionality, is proposed and discussed. Distinction between the Digital Earth and others geospatial approaches is provided. The intrinsic connection of definition and classifications is grounded, the new definition of the Digital Earth and complimentary classification of geospatial methods are offered. Semiotics aspects of the Digital Earth are discussed briefly. The question of the eligibility of technologies and systems to the Digital Earth is considered. The perspective issues of further development of the Digital Earth are considered.

The paper considers the question of bringing the existing set of laws, regulatory and legislative documents in line with the Digital Earth - new and promising universal and global environment for the information integration on all possible scales simultaneously. Existing of 4 possible geovisualization methods is stated, typology of geovisualization methods is proposed and discussed. A practical approach for determining the belonging of visualization to a particular type, based on the use of diagrams "angle-range", is proposed. Concept of 3D-documents within Digital Earth paradigm is unveiled and explained, brief history of the developing and adopting of this concept is described, the prospects of the future evolution of 3D-documents are considered briefly.

Virtual 3D model of the Valley of Geysers, Kamchatka provides virtual travelling and interactive storytelling in the cyberspace and serves for scientific visualization, geodynamical processes modeling, disaster preparedness and response, environmental studies, ecological education, and virtual ecotourism.